Originally Posted by
bragi
Lately, though, I've noticed that the majority of threads on this forum have little to do with car-free life-styles. Rather, it's people ranting about oil and/or car culture, the very thing many of us are trying to avoid. It reminds me of an AA meeting where everyone goes on all day about the evils of vodka. I've also noticed that about a dozen or so people comprise the the vast majority of posts here. Occasionally, new people wander in, but they, with few exceptions, run for the hills when they see what's going on. It's become a sick little club of whiners, as a recent poster mentioned.
In the spirit of providing some practical information, here are a couple of options for you:
1. If you think a particular thread has crossed the line and strayed into political or "advocacy" territory, use the report button and alert the mods, who will then decide to either move the post or leave it there, depending on the circumstances.
2. If a particular thread doesn't interest you, don't read it. You're under no obligation to participate in every thread on a particular sub-forum.
To be honest though, I don't really think this place has changed all that much since this subforum was created around 3-4 years ago. Some content was moved to the utility forum when it was created, but as far as I can recall, the whole point of creating this particular forum in the first place was to move a lot of the car-free vs non-car-free flame wars out of A & S (this was originally a sub-forum of A & S). Of course, they just found something else to bicker about to amuse themselves.
The point is, this "club of whiners" is really no different from any other place on the Internet. Virtually every Internet forum in existence is there for entertainment first and everything else a distant second. I remember going through a "this board isn't as good as it used to be phase". That lasted about as long as it took me to have a look at the archives and realise it was basically the same topics being rehashed by half a dozen posters all along, and the only reason I was losing interest is because I'd seen it all before. Then I ventured to other fora and found exactly the same thing happening.
Also, I don't think the new posters are necessarily driven off by the factors you mention. Most people probably just turn up here out of curiosity, realise that it's the same as the forum they "left", or that they have other ways to satisfy their entertainment needs, and move on. Given the amount of time the "core" posters spend online here, the newbie who turns up and only posts once a day, or just lurks probably wouldn't be noticed anyway. The people with the time to spend on line will always comprise the majority of the posts, and no changes in topic are going to change that.
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I am clinically insane. I am proud of it.
That is all.